Mass Effect: Andromeda was released earlier this year and was arguably one of the most anticipated games of the year. The Mass Effect series was hugely popular during the PS3/360 era and we couldn’t wait to see what Andromeda had in store for us and how it would take advantage of the enhanced power of the new generation of consoles.

Unfortunately, Mass Effect: Andromeda released to a lukewarm response at best and was rife with bugs, terrible facial animations for characters, and just a generally underwhelming experience. Developer BioWare has patched the game since, thus fixing some of the issues, but it seems Andromeda failed to perform nearly as well as expected. It has since been announced that no extra single-player content is planned to be released and it seems both the developer and publisher are eager to put it behind them. as the series appears to be on hold for now.

Despite the poor reception, EA boss Patrick Soderlund said in an interview with GameReactor that he believes the game received more criticism than it deserved. He also stated that the Mass Effect series may return one day.

“I usually don’t do this, but this is one of those places where I feel like the game got criticised a little bit more than it deserved,” he said. “I think the game is actually a great game. Yes, we have to acknowledge the fact that there were some things that maybe we could have done better, absolutely, but as a whole, if you go in and you buy the game today with everything that’s in it today, I believe that that’s a game worth buying, personally.”

Whilst it’s true that there are currently no plans for a new Mass Effect game anytime soon, Soderlund said the series may return eventually. “For Mass Effect as a franchise, that has such a big fanbase, and you know I’ve seen people saying ‘Oh, EA’s not making another Mass Effect’. I see no reason why we shouldn’t come back to Mass Effect,” he said. “Why not? It’s a spectacular universe, it’s a loved [series], it has a big fanbase, and it’s a game that has done a lot for EA and for BioWare.”

“What we need to be careful though of is, whenever we bring Mass Effect back again, we have to make sure that we bring it back in a really [relevant] way, and in a fresh, exciting place,” he added. “That’s my job, and that’s Casey’s [Hudson] job, and BioWare and the Mass Effect team’s job, to figure out what that looks like, and that we don’t know yet, but we will.”

The future of the Mass Effect series remains to be seen, but no doubt the series would be doing a lot better had the response to Andromeda been stronger. No doubt many fans of the series will be hoping we see another game sooner rather than later.